Senate OKs nominees, tax bill as term closes

FILE - In this Sunday, March 22, 2009 file photo, a man carries two beers back to his seat during a spring training baseball game in Kissimmee, Fla. New menu labeling rules from the Food and Drug Administration will require chain restaurants with 20 or more outlets to list the amount of calories in alcoholic drinks, along with other foods, on menus by November 2015. (AP Photo/Rob Carr, File)

Photo: Rob Carr, STF

WASHINGTON - The Democratic-controlled Senate confirmed the last batch of President Barack Obama's judicial appointees and sent the White House legislation extending tax breaks for working-class millions and special interests alike late Tuesday as Congress ended a tumultuous two-year run.

An 11th-hour attempt to renew a program obliging the government to cover part of the cost of terrorism-caused losses was sidetracked by retiring Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., who said it was a giveaway to private industry.

But dozens of Obama's agency nominees won approval on the final night of the Congress. Among them were Sarah Saldana to head Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Nicholas Rasmussen as director of the National Counterterrorism Center.

The night effectively marked the end of an eight-year era of Democratic control of the Senate, with Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada as majority leader. When the new Congress convenes in January, Republicans will hold a majority in both houses, able to set an agenda of their own making.

Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the incoming majority leader, announced that the first bill he would bring to the floor in 2015 will approve construction of the long-delayed Keystone XL pipeline to carry oil from Canada to the Gulf Coast.

The day's events were bittersweet for some.

"I can't believe I'm leaving here for the last time," said Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin, first elected to the House in 1974, and to the Senate in 1984.

Lawmakers finished with a final flurry of accomplishment that stood in contrast to a running series of battles over spending cuts, taxes, the debt limit and routine funding bills that led to crisis after crisis.

The House stubbornly voted more than 50 times in two years to repeal the health care law that Obama has vowed to defend - and at one point precipitated a 16-day partial government shutdown as a result.

There was no immediate comment from the White House on the final votes of the Congress, but Obama signed into law one major year-end measure, a $1.1 trillion spending bill to keep most of the government in operation through the Sept. 30 end of the budget year.

Confirmation of 12 judges came on top of 76 judicial appointees approved earlier in the year. The combined 88 was the most since a Democratic-led Senate approved 99 of President Bill Clinton's nominees in 1994, according to Russell Wheeler, who studies the judiciary at the Brookings Institution.

That easily surpassed the 43 approved last year and the 49 confirmed in 2012. The numbers jumped after Democrats muscled through a weakening of the Senate's rules on filibusters a year ago and reduced the Republicans' ability to delay votes.